Every year about this time the ant invasion begins. I don’t know about your house, but in mine, it’s in the same places every year, left side of the kitchen window and right side of the pantry, third shelf from the top. An old granny-woman once told me it’s no use fighting them, their pathways were here long before my house was built over them, and they’ll be here long after we’re gone.

Well, she may be right but they’re ruining my flour, cornmeal and sugar among other things. I’ve tried half a dozen natural remedies to get rid of the little pests, but none of them worked.

So far I’ve:

• Set out bay leaves; the house just smelled like soup.

• Sprinkled talc in their paths; I had powdery ants.

• Cleaned the kitchen with vinegar; now the house smells like vinaigrette salad dressing.

• Washed the ant trails with soapy water; well now they have clean trails to travel on.

• Rubbed their trails with petroleum jelly; they just struck up a new trail around the petroleum jelly.

• Powdered boric acid does work, but these ant trails go up walls, the powder doesn’t stick to walls and you’re not supposed to use it around food or pets, and both are in my kitchen.

I am spending entirely too much time trying to get rid of some sugar ants. I gave up on the natural repellents and bought a can of Raid. One tiny squirt each day for three days and they give up. At the rate I’m using it; I’ll have this can of Raid for another 10 years.

I may have won the battle, but I think I’m losing the war. According to Barbara Kingsolver in “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” when pesticides were first introduced in 1948, farmers used 50 million pounds of them and had lost 7 percent of their crops to insects. In 2000, they used nearly a billion pounds and had a 13 percent crop loss. Obviously the bugs are winning this war.

So what’s the solution? A healthy predator population would help, but what eats ants? Lizards, snakes, spiders, birds, other ants, and antlions are listed under a Google search for what eats ants. Well, I don’t want any of those in my house. Antlions are dedicated eaters-of-ants, but we have no antlions near the house. They’re all by the shed out back.

How can I entice them up to the house? According to the antlion webpage, antlionpit.com/index.html, putting dry sand under the eaves of my house will say mi casa es tu casa to these guys. I’ll be picking up a couple of sacks of builder’s sand my next trip to the hardware store. Let’s hope it works. That can of Raid is scaring me.